Wonderful. Important. What a pleasant surprise, and I'm also surprised I'm the first (apparently) to review this important book. Concise and profound, filled with important maxims garnered over a lifetime and a career by Major Cook which are painfully relevant TODAY. Not just military strategy, in no way overbearing, but simple well-written truths vital for the facility of critical thinking in our population TODAY, which is sorely lacking. Rather than teaching how to hate your brothers, THIS is what we should be teaching our youth, to create a prepared, reasoning, confident generation. For the rest of us, we gotta start somewhere! Bravo, and hoping the author produces more like this.

Very Direct and Powerful. This book is not only helpful but the overall structure of the book is very organized and well presented. It's not only a fast, easy, & comprehensive guide,, but it's also Easy to follow and engaging as well. Overall this book is Fast-paced and engaging, Informative, Inspirational, and Powerful. This Would make a great gift and it's a great read.

Not a typical book of meditations. This book is so much more than a book that just contains a bunch of meditations. This is a book that asks you questions and provides answers on a variety of topics that you probably haven't asked yourself or thought much about yet. The questions asked fall into one of the following categories: Leadership, Morality, Logic, Facts, Liberty, Criticism, Character, Education, and Politics.

This book is not for everyone though. The content of this book can be quite harsh and unapologetically overbearing and quite challenging for some people. However, if you can stand it, then this book is for you.

Nuggets of wisdom from an adult, moderately conservative perspective. This short, easy book attacks a huge, difficult question: "What is truth?" This book advocates and offers elderly advice: hard-won insights from having lived life for a while. I particularly like the initial brief overview of "logical fallacies;" how many people err in determining "truth." What is missing is the underlying basis as to why our biological minds make those assumptions. As a Ph.D. biologist who has written on this topic, we each see through the lens of our own hardwired mindsets. This book is written from what I perceive as a moderately conservative perspective. This is a totally appropriate viewpoint for the topic of the book, "Wisdom from your father." As people age, they naturally tend to change from wildly explorative youths to carefully protective adults to fearful seniors fearing death. As advocated in this well constructed short book, if wildly explorative youths were to listen to and value the experience of those of the prior generation, then they'd likely make better decisions for their lives. A lot of the short nuggets of experience presented here I found quite interesting and illuminating. I'm sure others will have the same experience. Although not stated in the introduction or preface, I suspect all readers will find at least a few of the "fatherly" statements to be wrong or offense, especially if one's brain is not wired as a moderate conservative. Knowing this "up front" will allow the reader to discard what's not useful to their own life while embracing the many insightful statements which are helpful to their own life. The author states in the introduction: "many of my Maxims are derived from exposing a failure in Logic." Yes, but whose logic? This is why from sincerely held differences comes war, evil, and exploitation: attacking illogical, wrong, "evil" people who deserve the worst. The "right" logic is mine. My own "elderly" advice is that "truth" is always multidimensional. Seen on one's present plain of understanding, "obvious" undisputable facts become fables at another level. An uncommon realization in us humans (for hardwired biological reasons) is that there is always a deeper, wider, higher, or more-substantial aspect to that which we label as "truth." This is why the pursuit of truth isn't arriving at an absolutist statement (which us elderly folks love to generate), but an ongoing, humble exploration. On one hand, this is incredibly difficult and scary. On the best level, it's a continuing adventur

While reading the quotes in the book you feel as though you are getting advice from a mentor or someone who has experienced so much in life and has a wealth of knowledge to share. I encourage readers to, as I did, stop and reflect on what is read, because while some quotes are subtle but potent, like this one "When Logic fails, Emotion reigns.", I found others to be layered and profound...This is a great book for readers who are looking to grow as a person and for those seeking an enlightened opinion on how to be the best version of themselves. I enjoyed the author's candid and unapologetic voice in his book... I recommend this book to parents and to young adults who are ready to go out into the world on their own and find out what kind of person they really are. This is a fantastic book for anyone that is about to embark on a personal transformation journey, as these will help guide them.

This is our absolute favorite Michael Cook book for a reason! We rarely have a book this short score this highly, but it's well-deserved. It's short and concise yet packs a huge punch! It's one of the best collections of inspirational and practical life quotes we've ever read! We have no doubt that if humanity were to follow the advice in this book, the world would be a much better and happier place... There's also a short section on different logical fallacies which are at the root of flawed thinking and decision making. Interestingly, this also includes appeals that Aristotle advocated for like the appeal to emotion. That reminds us that being persuasive doesn't mean being good, moral, or right. Most people are simply not aware that they are being manipulated by politicians, the education system, and the media on a constant basis... Something we can greatly appreciate about these is that many of them are what we'd consider counter-cultural. That means that they don't reflect the Millennial popular opinion of the time. This book isn't about what's popular or hip, it's about what's true and what works. For example, you would think that throwing money at a problem like poverty would work. That's pretty much what the government does. But what you think is real isn't necessarily reality. What you believe isn't necessarily what's true... Furthermore, we've long emphasized language, math, and sciences, but practical life skills and the trades have always been neglected by our education system. The author advocates for these practical life skills and trades.